Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/577

 And what those two have missed between 'em,

I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen 'em.

Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down

Knew Old England before the Crown.

Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood

Knew Old England before the Flood;

And when you end on the Hampshire side—

Butser's old as Time and Tide.

The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,

You be glad you are Sussex born!





very well pleased with what I knowed,

I reckoned myself no fool—

Till I met with a maid on the Brookland Road,

That turned me back to school.

Low down—low down!

Where the liddle green lanterns shine—

O maids, I've done with 'ee all but one,

And she can never be mine!

'Twas right in the middest of a hot June night,

With thunder duntin' round,

And I see'd her face by the fairy light

That beats from off the ground.

She only smiled and she never spoke,

She smiled and went away;

But when she'd gone my heart was broke

And my wits was clean astray.

